I was quite a bit snotty this week (as was the Internet Monk in his weekly podcast, but I promise we’re not the same person), but David and Michial were more than brilliant enough to pick up my slack as we discussed some of the changes that Christmas has undergone across the centuries, some of its historical enemies, and whether the 21st-century’s version of the War on Christmas is better described as Much Ado about Nothing or The Phantom Menace.? (My apologies to Shakespeare people and Star Wars people.? I’ve got a terrible cold, you see.)
As usual, please comment here or on Michial’s blog, and email thechristianhumanist@gmail.com if you’d like for us to address any questions on the air.
Good show this week. I come down with Farmer(?) in the end. We’re best off just acknowledging that the “Christmas” some devote so much energy (psychic and rhetorical, at least) to keeping Christ in is a secular, rather than Christian, holiday. Focusing on it is at best a distraction from the real reason for the season and at worst delusion as to what that reason is. If we really want to keep Christ in Christmas it’s going to require that we take up practices that are centered around Christ and, most likely, are made and kept very consciously distinct from and counter to the secular buying binge and mile-wide-inch-deep sentimentality.
Btw, you all need to set up a site for the show. Probably generate more discussion.